- Strange Journey is NOT a spin-off. It is a non-numbered mainline entry. It was considered SMT IV during development and only wasn't given the number in the end because it wasn't set in Japan. It's called "Shin Megami Tensei" in Japan, whereas Soul Hackers is part of the "Devil Summoner" branch. If SMT If is considered mainline (which it is), so is Strange Journey.
- Your point about sales is inconsistent and nonsensical to me. You say that SMT IV selling 96k proves that Persona wasn't more popular and the series overall was getting popular, but you also gave the numbers for Strange Journey and Soul Hackers as 28k and 26k, which is a huge decrease from P3 FES at 154k and P4 at 123k. What you're suggesting here just isn't backed up by your own evidence. 154,000 is a much bigger number than 26,000. Persona 3 FES sold
6x as much than those two games. Your hypothesis that your provided numbers shows Persona as not being more popular is just wrong.
- Okay so, "Physical US Sales via NPD", you said something about leaks, right? What time frame is that looking at? Launch window or lifetime? I honestly don't know. I admitted earlier that I don't know the source of these sales numbers, I don't really get caught up in stuff like that. I do know that Persona 4 sold 359k on the PS2 and 324k on Vita in Japan, and in America it was the best selling game on Amazon for two weeks. I don't dig much deeper than those base Wikipedia level facts because, as I've said several times, I do value the experiences I've had more than that. And I saw tons of Persona cosplay, merch, and conversation during that era. I didn't see anyone showing up in Strange Journey cosplay or trying to talk about Devil Survivor outside of the specific SMT fanbase. It's honestly... baffling to me someone would suggest that Persona wasn't huge for Atlus at the time and far more popular than SMT. That's been accepted by Atlus fans the entire time.
But you've got those leaked numbers or whatever, so let me provide my own piece of evidence. Google trends. I think that's a pretty accurate representation of what is "popular", moreso than leaked sales numbers with a bunch of asterisks next to them.
Let's compare how often people search for "Persona 3", "Persona 4", "Strange Journey", and "Shin Megami Tensei IV". To make it even fairer, we can start from 2008, years after Persona 3 first came out. We'll do 2008-2015, so it covers the launches of Strange Journey and SMT IV, but cuts off before Persona 5 comes out.
Something tells me you already know what the results are going to be because if you were in this fanbase during those years deep down you have to know that Persona was way more popular, but here we go either way.
Strange Journey and SMT IV both came close to almost being talked about as much very briefly when they launched before immediately dropping to almost nothing while Persona 3 and 4 never stopped being talked about the entire time.
I rest my case, I'm officially done with this back and forth.
Persona has always been more popular and was always the big hit for Atlus from the moment P3 hit the scene. Was even moreso when P4 hit. Even moreso when P4G hit. And even moreso when P5 hit. It gets more popular each time. SMT never comes close.